No logic in shifting gang-rape victim, say Delhi doctors

New Delhi, Dec 28 (IANS) As the 23-year-old gang-rape victim struggles for life in Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital, doctors in the national capital said moving her abroad in such a condition was "unusual". There was "no logic" behind it, they said.

"I can't understand the logic behind it, or rather it is unusual to transfer the girl from Delhi to Singapore when the patient has suffered a cardiac arrest, as I have been informed by the media," Samiran Nundy, chairman, department of surgical gastroenterology and organ transplantation, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, told IANS.

The 23-year-old victim was brutally beaten and raped by six men on a moving bus in Delhi Dec 16. She now fights for life with severe multiple intestinal, abdominal and other injuries. She was flown to Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital late Wednesday night.

"My suggestion would have been to stabilise her in India and get her out of the crisis; then do her intestinal transplant later. One cannot think about intestinal transplant at this moment. First, the infection spreading in her should be stopped, then one can think about transplant," Nundy said.

Another senior doctor from the trauma centre of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, requesting anonymity, said: "Maybe it was politically logical to shift the patient. But as a doctor, I would say it is totally insensitive to shift the patient with her infection spreading. Shifting now, that too within a few hours of cardiac arrest, is thoughtless."

Mount Elizabeth Hospital, where the woman is being treated, Thursday confirmed that she had a cardiac arrest in the early hours of Wednesday.

Nundy also said that in case of intestinal transplant, chances of survival are five years in 60 percent of cases, and one year in 80 percent.

Meanwhile, doctors treating the woman at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore have said she had suffered "significant brain injury" and continued to be in an "extremely critical condition".

Besides a prior cardiac arrest, the woman also had infection in her lungs and abdomen, "as well as significant brain injury", Kelvin Loh, the hospital's chief executive officer, was quoted as saying by the Straits Times.

"The patient is currently struggling against odds, and fighting for her life," he said.

He said a multi-disciplinary team of specialists has been working round-the-clock to treat her since her arrival Thursday. They were "doing everything possible to stabilise her condition over the next few days", he added.